Quotable Country – 03/30/14 Edition

March 30, 2014 by C.M. Wilcox

Click the bullet after each quote to visit the source.

I have people do it for me. I’ve never been on any of it. ●– – Gary Allan on social media.

Additionally, the Academy of Country Music and dick clark productions announced today that Merle Haggard, will be honored with the Crystal Milestone Award at the 49th ANNUAL ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS to commemorate Haggard’s prolific 50 years in country music. The ceremony, which will be co-hosted by Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton,…
Past recipients of the Crystal Milestone Award include Jason Aldean, Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Gayle Holcomb, Jennifer Nettles and Taylor Swift. ●– – Via Drunken Martina: “Winning ACM’s Crystal Milestone trophy, Merle Haggard joins esteemed ranks of Jason Aldean and Taylor Swift. I call it the WTF Award.” The good news is that it only took Merle Haggard 50 years to be as meritorious as Jennifer Nettles was by 2009.

I also make up songs from pieces of joke songs my friends and I made up. I just tweak the words a little so they’re not so funny anymore. I really don’t like joke songs for anything but personal at home stuff. People who record funny songs get on my nerves. They’re usually not as funny as they think they are. Comedians with guitars are the worst. ●– – Scott H. Biram.

When I moved here, people were like, ‘No one’s gonna record these songs you’re writing. No one wants to hear those.’ When I turned in ‘Last Call,’ my publisher was like, ‘Erin, seriously. If you turn in one more song about whiskey and cheating … ‘ ●– – Erin Enderlin to Jewly Hight.

Don Schlitz once said, ‘You can’t write country music looking down your nose at it.’ And it bothers me that sometimes we are ashamed of country music. We have a responsibility to be proud of this music. I loved country music so much that I left everyone I knew and loved and moved to Nashville all the way from Washington State. ●– – Brandy Clark to Alison Bonaguro.

But I believe a great song can’t be written with the idea of making everybody fall in love with you. That’s an effort in vanity. And vanity stops vulnerability. And I’m sold out to the idea that vulnerability leads to community. Deeply personal lyrics that chronicle the individuality of someone’s highs and lows can bring us together in ways that a cool never-let-them-see-you-sweat exterior won’t allow. Something about hearing the specific details of someone else’s wounds makes it okay to share the specifics of our own wounds. Then we don’t feel so alone. So the whole way through writing songs for myself I have to keep digging and pushing back the howling winds of fear. ●– – Former Cadillac Sky frontman and hit songwriter Bryan Simpson (“Better Than I Used to Be”), writing for American Songwriter.

Don’t get me wrong, this is no disrespect to those who don’t write their own songs because I have been in that situation where I hear an amazing song and think “Oh, dawg, that’s my story,” but having a hand in it makes it mine and my story.
There have been songs that people have started, and we come in on the end. And that’s one way of doing things, but it’s always been easier to live the true story. If you live by lies, you have to remember them. You can’t lie to nobody but the police. ●– – Brantley Gilbert to CMT’s Chris Parton, equating singing other people’s songs to lying.

Q: Is it kind of a typical Friday night party song?
A: Pretty much, yeah. We wrote it about the same kind of story as “My Kind of Party.” The day we get tired of Daisy Dukes, pasture parties and stuff is the day we are headed towards techno, and it’s time for me to step away. ●– – Brantley Gilbert again. It’s time, dawg… it’s time.

Even though he spoke little, Currington connected with the crowd – which appeared to be something approaching 3,000 – with simple statements such as “Where’s the beer drinkers in the house?” and “Where’s all the country boys and girls?”
And, before the funny, touching minor hit “Like My Dog”: “We got any dog lovers in the house?” ●– – In a concert review for The Morning Call, John J. Moser recounts Billy Currington’s inspired stage banter. We got anyone with some actual personality in the house?

I just stand there at the microphone, play the guitar and sing, and do what I’m there to do. I’m not there to aerobicize. I’m not there to make a spectacle of myself. I’m there to deliver the songs in a live format as close to the recorded format as I can get them. And then that’s my job for the evening. My job is not to run an aerobics class. ●– – Aaron Lewis on performing live.

“I’m not interested in chasing what’s on the radio,” says the label’s founder, Jim Burnett. “I told Brandy [Clark], ‘My criteria for a record is if it can sell itself by word of mouth.'” Six months after “12 Stories” came out in October, he added, “we’re in the black without having sold a million records.” ●– – Brandy Clark gets some ink in the Los Angeles Times. At around 26,000 copies sold, Slate Creek label owner Jim Burnett calls 12 Stories a success.

I grew up on that stuff. I grew up on Garth and George and Alan Jackson. That’s always gonna be part of who I am as a songwriter, you know? I’m right in the middle of the second album, and I can guarantee you that we’re gonna have some real country music on it, too. I say real country music, and I say that because it is gonna have a couple of the George Strait, Garth Brooks moments on it. And I always want that to happen. ●– – Compared to most of his peers, Dustin Lynch might as well be Hank Williams. But on a scale of 55 to Abe Vigoda, how old does it make you feel to realize that the most traditional of country’s current stars has a memory of ‘real country music’ going back no further than George Strait?

I just love music, and I absorbed what I love. I’m not really into alternative country — I’m into Patsy Cline, who lived down the street from where I lived, and old Dolly Parton records, Kitty Wells and that old stuff. I like country music. I also like Eric Church, who has a great new sound but also holds onto that old sound. ●– – Valerie June, who memorably performed “Like Jesus Does” with Church at last year’s ACMs.

It’s dumb, if you want my honest opinion. Music always changes. The people arguing about it need to find something else to do. Music has always evolved. Carrie Underwood don’t sound like Dolly Parton. Nobody wanted to listen to Hank Jr. when he came out. Now he’s the benchmark for country music. If you don’t like this sound or that sound, go find one that you like – it’s okay, it’s not a big deal. ●– – Colt Ford on the ‘real country’ debate.

Would someone please play a woman on the radio? Any woman. Doesn’t have to be me but if I hear one more bro country song I’m gonna vomit! ●– – Dispatch from Sheryl Crow, retweeted 543 times.

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Comments

Colt Ford can take his “evolution” and blow it out his fourth point of contact. Seriously, why does “evolution” in country music always have to be toward it sounding less, ahem, country?

So Brantley Gilbert apparently thinks the likes of George Strait made himself a legend by effectively lying to his fans. Special.

And except for the “sometimes” qualifier, Brandy Clark hit the nail on the head. It strikes me that more often than not these days “country” artists seem to be rather ashamed of the genre.
Exhibit A: the thinly-disguised EDM of “Drink To That All Night.”
Exhibit B: Florida-Georgia Line rapping in “This Is How We Roll.”
And you know the list goes on…

But on a scale of 55 to Abe Vigoda, how old does it make you feel to realize that the most traditional of country’s current stars has a memory of ‘real country music’ going back no further than George Strait?

Given how much of the ’90s Country is Best Country I’ve seen on the Internet, including this site, I find including someone whose career began in the ’80s as an influence almost refreshing. It wasn’t even a month ago there was a quote from someone (was it Brandy Clark?) talking about that great ’90s music.

Wait, I went back and found it:

“But I loved that era. I think, was that music great, or was it just a formative time in my life right then? I personally think it was really great, and I feel lucky that I was influenced by it. My grandparents lived next door to us, so I know a lot of older country that a lot of people my age don’t know. But when I was in junior high and high school is when Trisha Yearwood came out, [along with] Kathy Mattea, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Suzy Bogguss, Pam Tillis, Wynonna, and my favorite, Patty Loveless. I’m just as influenced by them as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.”

That’s from the 1/12 edition. It’s older than I thought. This is what happens when people in their 30s right now, and their 20s, hit the scene. Stuff from when I (I’m 34) was in junior high and high school is influential.

Really, I think we should just count ourselves lucky he’s not citing Neal McCoy and John Michael Montgomery as influences.